Font Size
Washington Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein offered a tart tweet: “A Catholic newsletter promised investigative journalism. Then they outed a priest using Grindr data.” Clearly, they’re implying one is journalism, and one is not. The website is called The Pillar, run by muckrakers Ed Condon and J.D. Flynn, and it s too conservative for the
Post.
This story was spread across two pages of the Sunday paper. Their liberal bias is plain: they think it’s investigative journalism when you find Catholic priests abusing children, but when you expose top church officials (who take a solemn vow of celibacy) prowling around for gay sex on an app, that’s just a lifestyle choice.
Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill -- On Scandal nationalreview.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nationalreview.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
(iStock)
On July 20, a Catholic online news commentary site, The Pillar, published a report alleging that Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “engaged in serial sexual misconduct, while he held a critical oversight role in the Catholic Church’s response to the recent spate of sexual abuse and misconduct scandals.” The Pillar used “commercially available records of app signal data” to track a mobile device correlated to Monsignor Burrill that “suggest he was at the same time engaged in serial and illicit sexual activity.”
Operated by two former editors at E.W.T.N.’s Catholic News Agency, J. D. Flynn and Ed Condon, The Pillar offers news and analysis about the Catholic Church, mostly in the United States. Just before the publication of the story on July 20, the U.S.C.C.B. announced that Monsignor Burrill had resigned in light of “impending media reports alleging possible improper behavior.”